One year ago today: April 1, 2016, building the birdfeeder.
Five years ago today: April 1, 2012, a generic day.
Nine years ago today: April 1, 2008, tales from the trailer court.
Random years ago today: April 1, 2007, red-eye remedy.
I was up early enough to watch a DVD movie before breakfast. Another terrorist flick where they get past the billion dollar security because it was wasted on keeping records instead of chasing bad guys. I’m happy to say the movie put me back to sleep. If these politicians insist on holding mass summits, they should quit acting surprised when such events are targetted. Why can’t they meet in one of the strip clubs they all patronize? Oh, and every terrorist knows in his sleep what “the eagle is on the move” means. The movie? “Vantage Point”.
I’ve got one for you. Have you ever wondered why, when you see those pictures of Carnival in Rio, there is always a picture of some dynamite chocolate babe in a skimpy outfit? Answer, to those of you who have ever seen the rest of the parade, she is the only good-looking woman in the entire province. It’s a good thing South America, like Miami, has no laws against being fat and ugly.
Here chick-chick-chick. These are your baby Asians you can buy up at Tractor supply. These are a mixture of hens and roosters. They are not pets, chickens demand a lot of attention. But if you know how each one can live 8 -10 years and in that time the hens will lay thousands of eggs. Heads up, though, nobody will tell you how much work it is to keep them. And not only can they carry human disease, don’t be surprised if one morning the whole coop dies on you. Just like that.
It’s now 4:50AM and you know, I think I need your help. Work with me on this. That guitar player had a complete Mackie 16 channel system in his garage and that tarp in the back looked suspiciously like he had thrown it over a set of drums before I arrived. He didn’t know how to work that mixer or set his own microphones. Are these telltale signs that he is not the guitar soloist he claimed in the e-mails? Soloists don’t need 90 pound PA columns. That mixer had setting on every channel and he seemed hesitant to change them. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
He was visibly impressed by my bass fills to that song I’d never heard—and something changed in his manner right after that. Then it hit me, he was suddenly all apologetic that he didn’t play any of the songs I sent him two weeks ago and was now worried I would not stick around. Hmmmm, a true soloist would not be so concerned about that, which is also when he played the lead guitarist card. He also said he sang, but he didn’t know the lyrics to any of the songs he strummed—and kept asking if we were going to do harmonies. Not until you can strum that guitar, we aren’t.
There were other telltale mannerisms. He appeared confused when I asked him to play stock strums, like a Blues sound, or a Bo Diddley sound. Nor did he know how to half-time really fast songs. That’s where the rhythm strum is half the speed of the bass run. It’s pretty much the only way you can strum to fast numbers like “Cocaine Blues” and “Jackson”. Also, he twice mentioned that he didn’t know this music because he was a generation out. Nonsense, he’s twelve years younger than I am. Which raises another question of why he didn’t want to copy the music on my flash drive. Oh ho, he didn’t want me to see his computer, so he claimed he did all his work on his smart phone. What’s that smell?
He’s working for somebody else, that part is now clear. My ad said no lead players. Was he sent to check me out? He also said there were gigs where a four piece could make “a hundred bucks each”. Not around here, there ain’t. It’s starting to make sense. He lied about knowing older country. There’s some hidden agenda at work. I told him to learn any five of the songs I gave him and send me a list so I’ll do the same. If he’s not for real, I’ll know instantly something is afoot. He’s a rhythm player, this guy, but no way is he a soloist.
Then, he could not hold down a steady strum when I showed him exactly what I wanted. He had to drag everything down to slow, a sure sign he’s used to relying on a drummer to keep a tempo.
There’s another possibility that fits this scenario. That he was recently canned by another band and now trying to strike out on his own. If so, somebody had better tell him gently. Most guitarists, a category into which he fits most squarely, could not manage a popsicle stand. For Christ’s sake, his 1985 Ovation looked brand new. If he’s lying, there is no way he can learn five tunes in a week.
Katyusha.
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I was at the store checking the price of black sand. That’s the aluminum oxide used in sand blasters. It comes in various grits at ten bucks a bag. It’s the same stuff you see on black sandpaper. All my Vivitar macros (closeup photos) failed. That’s the final stage of my pricing on the project. This can be set up for $115, less the compressor and vacuums, which we already have. That’s well within the April budget, considering not much was spend this entire year.
As for the hobby, I’ve mostly kept up with the theory and reading. I can now build logic circuits out of any type of integrated circuit that has gates. One thing I’d like to build is a half-adder. No, that’s not a snake, Hector, but if it was, I’d throw it in your face. It’s a digital circuit that know when it is full to flag a “carry” signal. It’s covered here long ago.
Next, over to the computer center to fix that bank problem. And it uncovers another problem. To the casual observer—the worst kind—this account reads like some rich guy’s slush fund. There are minimum balances that exceed the amounts most people are familiar with. I’ll do something about that very quickly. Remember what happened in Greece. And the software is built into the system, they need only turn it on.
Then, my relaxation for the day, I looked deeper into gold dredging, ha-ha, little pun there. This photo shows gold allegedly recovered from just north of Tampa. I stumbled across a site of mining claims in that area and there are entire operations for sale. Mostly river barges with scoops that trolley the river bed into commercial size crushers and massive sluices. The small pontoon dredge we are looking at is $1,500 new, we have a used unit on the back burner.
The rest of the materials, including the sluices, ribbed matting, hip waders, nozzles, and such are available on eBay and thus probably any mining supply store in the vicinity. I’ll find where they are next outing. But basically, $2,000 would put you in the gold business on a small scale. I would not touch the larger operations, since in my thinking there is only one reason anybody would want to sell a gold mine, are you with me on that one?
Once again, though, the obtainable information does not tell you what you need to know. This can be a sign of many things but the odds are there is a gap between the people who do the gronk work and those who manage the money. The situation where the prospector can’t directly sell the product and the upper levels can’t find the gold. It then becomes complex to figure out how to run the show start to finish. I’ll proceed on the assumption there is a reason you never see prospectors selling gold directly to the public and that it’s not because they are a pack of crusty loners.
The next step is looking into selling the yard junk as collectibles and antiques. I can’t recall the name of the place Fred told me about, but I think it was Shopify. The customer has the option to show up and a place of your choosing to take delivery. Is that familiar? Anyway, all the sites I found talked about how to set up the software, not how the business operates. I’ll get it on my own. These sites are a lot alike, you pay a fee for a web page and customize it from their templates. Mind you, the clever guy who knows HTML can really make a difference on customer appeal.
Dang, the Vivitar let me down again. It goes through the motions of taking pictures, but when you go to retrieve them, they aren’t there. I had some great photos of civil war leather goods. I can’t replace them as Agt. R already came by while I was out and dropped off the headboard set. I noted the guitar player, who should have e-mailed me his list by now, has done nothing. Maybe I’ll take the day off. Or solder something. That’s always relaxing. I’m baking chicken and making a roast so I’m settled in for the afternoon.
“I can see three years into the future,
I’ve got 2020 vision.”
Damn Vivitar, I lost another round of great shots. Instead, I’ll tell you some details. We are going to go ahead with the sandblasting cabinet and the on-line selling site. Agt. R has some optimistic concepts of moving items on the Internet, since his two sons experience early sales of used vehicles the same day they first listed. I’m far more skeptical, as I advertised similar collector’s items for the Thrifts ten years ago. Even when paid to ship and handle, that part of it was always a time-consuming hassle. Yet not enough so that it was worth hiring somebody else to do it. Most people think minimum wage is a good idea until they have to hire somebody.
Later, here is a neat photo of the woodwork on the side of this old church pulpit. See how the square pegs are fitted into the sides, but not a dovetail pattern. There is a lot of this style of furniture around the area, but most of it would have to be repurposed to have any sales value. This pulpit has a locking lid with the old skeleton key mechanism, of course the key is missing. I’ll just make one out of wood to see if there are any piece of the original cross in there.
Remember Zolfo Springs, known to us only as the old Route 66 cutover to avoid the traffic light mess of Sebring? You turn west just north of town and the river contains some islands. It is almost impossible to not talk about gold since the topic was first broached. But it would be best kept in mind there is a wide range of motives at work here. Myself, I’m disinclined to invest in anything that doesn’t have an immediate payout. If the gold is there, it would be easy enough for me to find out.
Toward that end, I watched a number of videos of small dredging operations. They consist of a pump, hoses, and a pontoon mounted sluice. I found the sluice physics make great armchair reading. Most of the operators had two gas-powered water pumps but did not explain why. It is a two-man operation and the guy that’s in the water working the hose had better eat a hearty breakfast. My guess is a full day would be three to four hours in the water. Shown here is a factory-made sluice, I’m learning what features to look for. Like the flare at the right end and the number of “ribs”.
Having this mental concept of the gear, I went to Tractor Supply and priced out a 4.8 HP motor with a built-in impeller style pump. They are used for draining swamps, so they must be able to tolerate a lot of crap getting into the works, but I’ll still need research. The price, at $299, is okay. That’s petty cash. What I don’t know is the operating costs and what extra might be needed to actually commence. The hose I saw was $35, but Agt. R already has the boat, trailer, and floats. He says he would build the assembly to connect to the side of the boat, maybe like an outrigger.
Only a few of the clips show the actual recovery of gold from the paydirt. And that is a messy procedure. But, if you watch the tons of material that gets sifted, you’ll see at the end of the day, the amount of black sand that contains the gold, if any, is no more than a few cups, maybe a pint or two at best. If so, forget these field works, get the material back home to a shiny, air-conditioned back shed with a coffee-maker. You can’t get over the feeling that people who process their paydirt in the field are unnecessarily throwing away some recoverable gold.
I emphasize this is only talk. I have no intention of chasing gold, but nor to I have any particular aversion to doing just that. Agt. R has previously collected shark teeth and arrowheads in the area and knows ready buyers for such. The Peace River is also famous for fossils. You may recall I was looking at a day tour of that. I forget why I canceled out at the last minute. I asked about the second motor and the closest I got to an answer was that the first motor dredges the goop, but does not provide enough flowing water to work the sluice. In which case, any old pump motor would be fine. The activity has value to me as an adventure and if they were selling tickets, I’d attach around $500 to its worth for a guy like me.
So ask yourself, would you pay that much money to go on a guided tour or tourist expedition for the experience? I’ll bet some who said no are the type who would spend twice that much to go to a nothing place like Hawaii for a week. And spend another $500 getting drunk because there ain’t much else to do in Waikiki.
ADDENDUM
Mid-days are getting hot again, so I watched a werewolf DVD. These always stress the political system at the time, it’s a Hollywood thing. But at least the English and German maids are always lusty. Still, I would have found it a terribly boring time to be around. But I’ve noticed the arrangements of lord and peasants holds a real fascination for the shallow-minded of today’s crop of level 90 gaming addicts. Possibly because it is the only arrangement they’ll ever grasp where they can imagine themselves a hero.
I finished the DVD. And teenage sex in the medieval era, well, from what I can tell, it involved a lot of riding horses half to death through the woods behind the castle. And none of that silly side-saddle stuff, neither. The trick seems to be finding the local virgins who somehow got overlooked by all the knights in shining armor, no mean feat. What they lacked in on-line dating sites, they made up for with pagan rituals at midnight.
Last Laugh
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